I had a couple of firsts tonight. Wanting to take a break from painting,I decided to try some solo games of SoBH. While I've played Drums/Shakos twice,I've never played Blades/Heroes. I've also never done a solo game before,even though I've thought about it for years,even to the point of buying several books on the subject.
Since I had never done solo play,I wasnt sure if it would hold my interest,as I'm used to having a live person across from me. However, while I didnt use any special mechanism to drive either side,I simply used a logical approach as to what I would do in either case if I were playing an actual opponent. What followed was a sheer delight!
For the games, I drew up 4 warbands. I decided on doing the same scenario for all 3 games. It was a defend the farmstead type deal,which basically amounted to the defender and the attacker just beating each other to death. The 4 warbands I drew up were a human,an evil human, an orc and an elf. I decided that the humans were going to be the guinea pigs and defend the farm for every game. Since I hadnt played before, I wanted to use something different for each warband, to get some different flavors out of the game.
All the warbands were 300 points. The humans were basically a leader, an armored footman,warriors,light infantry and a cleric. The evil humans I vaguely modeled on a chaos type warband- a leader, heavily armored infantry, a wizard,a centipede swarm and some giant frogs. The orcs were pretty standard fare,a tribal leader,some warriors,archers and of course, a troll. The elves were a leader, bowmen and spearmen.The terrian,which was the same for all 3 games,was a farm on one side, a hedge in the center of the board, and just several individual trees opposite that.
The first game saw the evil humans versus the human defenders. the humans deployed on their edge,behind the farm, with the light infantry,the heavy warrior and the leader in the center,with the cleric and a warrior on the right, and 2 warriors on the left flank(the farmhouse and its stable sort of split their deployment into zones, and they wanted to cover several approaches as well as was practical. The evil humans deployed with their leader,several of the hvy foot in the center,along with the swarm,with the intention of the swarm accting as a screen against the human lights. On the left were the magic user and the rest of the heavy foot. on the right,intending to probe on the right were the giant frogs. The game opened with barely a wimper,both sides failing initiative very quickly in the turn. This hurt the humans more, as they wanted to gain the hedge and set up a defensive line along the hedge,while sealing off either flank. The evil guys wanted to cross the hedge as quickly as possible,as they had no shooting at all,save the magician. This was a hard task for them, as their mainstaythe hvy foot only have short moves. Finally the evil side gained more initiative and crossed the hedge before the humans could set their defense. At the same time,the magician andhvy foot were able to move out on their left,and the human cleric and the warrior desperately tried to stop them. The magician was able to "transfix" the cleric,and the evil warriors were able to move in and cut him and the warrior down,thus cracking the human right flank wide open. In the meantime,the evil heavy foot had crossed in the center and advancing on the farm. The human center boldly moved forward(after getting some intiative and some group multi-moves) to oppose them. The first round of combat the human leader went under the sword of the evil men,and the humans scattered as a result of their morale failures. They were able to rally back and oppose the evil ones for a few more turns,and almost swung the tide of battle when the human lights dropped the evil leader,and one of the human warriors swooped in and speared him,but it was only forestalling the inevitable. The final human defender,a warrior, was cut down in the dooryard of the farmhouse.
The second game was the orcs versus the humans. The humans deployed in the same manner,while the orcs formed a very strong center with their warriors,using the troll as a spearhead. They also formed a small bow group to provide supporting fire for the warriors. This game progressed in a very similar manner to the first,slow moving initially,but the orcs and humans arrived at the hedge line simultaneously.The troll was the first over the hedge,but it was counterattacked by the human leader and hvy warrior and killed. However,this was all in the plan for the orcs,and the cheiftain and several warriors pushed through the hedge,and a bloody melee ensued. It ended with the humans being cut down at the hedge line with a significant portion of the orcs alive,although they were limping.
The final game pitted the elves versus the humans. The elven warband was only half the size of the hmans,but they were very adept at the ways of warfare. They won the initiative and multi moved straight up to the hedge on the first turn. The bowmen then proceeded to set up a line of withering fire against the human band,which basically tried to advance in a group as rapidly as possible to gain the otherside of the hedge. They succeeded in doing this,but the human leader was cut down by the expert fire of the elven bow. the ensuing morale check caused the humans to scatter towrd the nearest board edges,however,they were able to rally and they all tried to avoid the bows of the elves and contest them on their side of hedge with flanking maneuvers. they succeeded in this,but the nimble-footed elves simply hopped the hedge to the other side,but not till after several elven spear had been cut down by fierce human attacks.The humans were able to cross back over the hedge and more bloody combat occured,with heavy losses on both sides,and it came down to the elven leader alone versus 3 humans.However,he mustered his courage and managed to slay them all.
Thus the 3rd and final game ended. I was so impressed with the actions of the elven leader/hero that I left the board set up with him standing alone at the scene of his triumph,until the next time.
